Wednesday, 5 March 2008

Anna Akhmatova( On her 42nd death anniversary)

A portrait of Anna Akhmatova by Nathan AltmanOn 1st March I was invited to visit the Literary Museum at the Fountain House (part of the Sheremetev Palace). Here Anna Akhmatova spent many years of her life in a Communal flat where she shared the kitchen with at least ten other people. The museum has well preserved the articles,utensils, furniture,paintings, books etc. from that period.

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was born near the city of Odessa as Anna Gorenko but she moved with her parents to the Tsarskoe Sello(The Tsar’s village)near St. Petersburg when she was just one year old. She began to write poem at the age of 11. It was at the Tsarskoe Sello she met the poet Nikolai Gumilev who proposed to her but was shown a cold shoulder by Akhmatova. Gumilev went to Africa to forget the bitterness of rejection and in the meanwhile Anna Gorenko’s parents separated and she went with her mother to live in Kiev. Gumilev wrote-“You can’t call her beautifulBut all my happiness is in her”.Later when Gumilev returned from Africa he again proposed to Anna Akhmatova and they got married in 1910. She completed her first book ‘Evening’ which was published later. Their son Lev was born in 1912. Their relationship was not easy as Gumilev himself was a well known poet and both of them pursued their hearts in terms of relationships.The legend is that one of the ancestors from her mother side was Ahmad Khan, from the family of Chengis Khan and when her father told her that it was not good to be poet for a girl from a noble family then she changed her surname from Gorenko to Akhmatova.Anna Akhmatova was one of the leading figures of the famous ‘Silver Age’ of the Russian literature and she shared the stage with writers and poets like Mikhail Kuzmin, Aleksandr Blok, Osip Mandelstam, Mayakovsky etc... Akhmatova had a long life and she was witness to the Bolshevik revolution led by Lenin and afterwards the repressive Stalin years. She did not leave Russia even though her friends and fellow poets either emigrated to the West, were sent to the Siberian camps, died or were killed. Her husband Gumilev was charged with anti-revolutionary activities and was arrested and shot. Their only son Lev Gumilev was arrested and released and arrested again. She could not publish her poems in the Stalin years until the Second World War began and she was given the opportunity to publish. During the 900 days of blockade of Leningrad she wrote her great poem ‘Courage’ to inspire her countrymen to withstand all the sufferings and defend the motherland. During the war years she wrote “Poem without a hero.” But once the war was over she was again banned from publishing and her son was arrested. She began to glorify Stalin for the sake of her only son Lev but this did not help much and Lev had to spend ten years in Siberia. In the 1960s Anna Akhmatova wrote her most important work ‘Requiem’ which had not been written since the last twenty years. Requiem celebrates the memories of her very near and dear ones. She wrote-"To forget is a terrible thingI remember each one of you".Anna Akhmatova published her poems after the Stalin Era was over and the ‘Khrushchev Thaw’ began. She lived a long life and vividly narrated the history of her generation through her poems. In 1962 Robert Frost visited her country house. In her last years Akhmatova wrote memoirs and poems and made many translations. On March 5, 1966 Anna Akhmatova died. I am placing below one of her most widely read poems 'Requiem'.

Requiem

Not under foreign skiesNor under foreign wings protected -I shared all this with my own peopleThere, where misfortune had abandoned us.[1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, Ispent seventeen months waiting in prison queues inLeningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never inher life heard my name. Jolted out of the torporcharacteristic of all of us, she said into my ear(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describethis?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then thatsomething like a smile slid across what had previouslybeen just a face.[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

DEDICATION

Mountains fall before this grief,A mighty river stops its flow,But prison doors stay firmly boltedShutting off the convict burrowsAnd an anguish close to death.Fresh winds softly blow for someone,Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,We are everywhere the same, listeningTo the scrape and turn of hateful keysAnd the heavy tread of marching soldiers.Waking early, as if for early mass,Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:But hope still sings forever in the distance.The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,Followed by a total isolation,As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.Where are you, my unwilling friends,Captives of my two satanic years?What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.[March 1940]

INTRODUCTION[PRELUDE]

It happened like this when only the deadWere smiling, glad of their release,That Leningrad hung around its prisonsLike a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sangShort songs of farewellTo the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,As they, in regiments, walked along -Stars of death stood over usAs innocent Russia squirmedUnder the blood-spattered boots and tyresOf the black marias.

I

You were taken away at dawn. I followed youAs one does when a corpse is being removed.Children were crying in the darkened house.A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God. . .The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-coldsweatOn your brow - I will never forget this; I will gather

To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy (1)Inconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.[1935. Autumn. Moscow]

II

Silent flows the river DonA yellow moon looks quietly onSwanking about, with cap askewIt sees through the window a shadow of youGravely ill, all aloneThe moon sees a woman lying at homeHer son is in jail, her husband is deadSay a prayer for her instead.

III

It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.Not like this. Everything that has happened,Cover it with a black cloth,Then let the torches be removed. . .Night.

IV

Giggling, poking fun, everyone's darling,The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo (2)If only you could have foreseenWhat life would do with you -That you would stand, parcel in hand,Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth inline,Burning the new year's iceWith your hot tears.Back and forth the prison poplar swaysWith not a sound - how many innocentBlameless lives are being taken away. . .[1938]

V

For seventeen months I have been screaming,Calling you home.I've thrown myself at the feet of butchersFor you, my son and my horror.Everything has become muddled forever -I can no longer distinguishWho is an animal, who a person, and how longThe wait can be for an execution.There are now only dusty flowers,The chinking of the thurible,Tracks from somewhere into nowhereAnd, staring me in the faceAnd threatening me with swift annihilation,An enormous star.[1939]

VI

Weeks fly lightly by. Even so,I cannot understand what has arisen,How, my son, into your prisonWhite nights stare so brilliantly.Now once more they burn,Eyes that focus like a hawk,And, upon your cross, the talkIs again of death.[1939. Spring]

VIITHE VERDICT

The word landed with a stony thudOnto my still-beating breast.Nevermind, I was prepared,I will manage with the rest.

I have a lot of work to do today;I need to slaughter memory,Turn my living soul to stoneThen teach myself to live again. . .

But how. The hot summer rustlesLike a carnival outside my window;I have long had this premonitionOf a bright day and a deserted house.[22 June 1939. Summer. Fontannyi Dom (4)]

VIIITO DEATH

You will come anyway - so why not now?I wait for you; things have become too hard.I have turned out the lights and opened the doorFor you, so simple and so wonderful.Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst inLike a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on meLike a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,Or, with a simple tale prepared by you(And known by all to the point of nausea), take meBefore the commander of the blue caps and let meglimpseThe house administrator's terrified white face.I don't care anymore. The river YeniseySwirls on. The Pole star blazes.The blue sparks of those much-loved eyesClose over and cover the final horror.[19 August 1939. Fontannyi Dom]

1.I have learned how faces fall,How terror can escape from lowered eyes,How suffering can etch cruel pagesOf cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.I know how dark or ash-blond strands of hairCan suddenly turn white. I've learned to recogniseThe fading smiles upon submissive lips,The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.That's why I pray not for myselfBut all of you who stood there with meThrough fiercest cold and scorching July heatUnder a towering, completely blind red wall.

2.The hour has come to remember the dead.I see you, I hear you, I feel you:The one who resisted the long drag to the open window;The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiarsoil beneath her feet;The one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,

'I arrive here as if I've come home!'I'd like to name you all by name, but the listHas been removed and there is nowhere else to look.So,I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humblewordsI overheard you use. Everywhere, forever and always,I will never forget one single thing. Even in newgrief.Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouthThrough which one hundred million people scream;That's how I wish them to remember me when I am deadOn the eve of my remembrance day.If someone someday in this countryDecides to raise a memorial to me,I give my consent to this festivityBut only on this condition - do not build itBy the sea where I was born,I have severed my last ties with the sea;Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stumpWhere an inconsolable shadow looks for me;Build it here where I stood for three hundred hoursAnd no-one slid open the bolt.Listen, even in blissful death I fearThat I will forget the Black Marias,Forget how hatefully the door slammed and an old womanHowled like a wounded beast.Let the thawing ice flow like tearsFrom my immovable bronze eyelidsAnd let the prison dove coo in the distanceWhile ships sail quietly along the river.[March 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

FOOTNOTES

1 An elite guard which rose up in rebellionagainst Peter the Great in 1698. Most were eitherexecuted or exiled.2 The imperial summer residence outside StPetersburg where Ahmatova spent her early years.3 A prison complex in central Leningrad near theFinland Station, called The Crosses because of theshape of two of the buildings.4 The Leningrad house in which Ahmatova lived.